American Digest - The Top 40

Who is this guy? I've been waiting 30 years to hear a black man say what he just said. He is speaking truth and light in a world of lies and darkness. I pray that, somehow, this message will get out and resonate with the black community. Ironically, I watched this in Afghanistan and the same thing could be said about Muslims...no matter what Americans do, Muslims will blame America for everything that goes wrong in this world and victimize themselves. Is it an accident of history that Israel created a prosperous, sovereign, democratic nation from the same soil that Arabs have created only poverty and totalitarianism? The Islamic world is a culture of failure and victimhood.

Posted by Gary at December 11, 2012 6:40 PM

Bill Cosby is one of the few that have come forward with basically the same message. Problem is, no one in the black community is listening. It's sooooooo much easier to be a victim than to work your way out of your bad situation, so why try?

Posted by drdave at December 11, 2012 9:11 PM

"tighten your chin strap"- is he ex-military?

Posted by JB at December 11, 2012 9:53 PM

There are more blacks like him than you think. If you type in the YouTube search engine the letters:
tmotofga...you'll meet a fine rev'rend who calls himself The Minister of Truth. Watch the ones he does while stuck in traffic. They are marvelous.

It truly is mind-blowing when you wake up. It's impossible to "unsee" what you now "see". Sure can't be easy to be him, he's brave.Sadly, I don't know any black people like him except Lt. Col. West.

Posted by pinklady at December 12, 2012 9:01 AM

I know several black men like this (my stepdad is one), but I'll say this: most black men who think this way will not reveal themselves except to people they trust. Most of the time that person isn't white. And that's not a racial statement, but a numbers and proximity statement. Such men are likely to trust very few people, regardless of race.

I know several black men like this (my stepdad is one), but I'll say this: most black men who think this way will not reveal themselves except to people they trust. Most of the time that person isn't white. And that's not a racial statement, but a numbers and proximity statement. Such men are likely to trust very few people, regardless of race.

After more than 50 years of learning how racist I am, just by virtue of being white, I've decided that it really doesn't matter much.

I feel so much better, now that I've given up hope.

Posted by Estoy Listo at December 12, 2012 8:30 PM

Gerard, thanks.

"Everything that's negative about the American Negro is the fault of white America."

In a strange way, that's partly right. The statistics are staggering.

"50% of black female 18- 45 have genital herpes.
60% of black men drop out of high school.
The leading cause of death for black men is other black men."

The contrast to an earlier generation is amazing.

I attended a memorial service at Howard University last weekend for a very accomplished woman who died at age 97. She was black and was born during the era of Jim Crow. She wanted to be a doctor and was accepted to medical school in Kansas in the 1930s. She was told that she could only attend for two years after which she would have to transfer to a black medical school because white patients would not want to be treated by a black person. She went to Howard for her last 2 years of medical school, practiced in New York, and along the way not only delivered countless babies but attracted countless friends. In addition to private practice she held high level positions as a medical administrator for both public and private organizations.

She is the embodiment of the individual who did not allow adversity to stand in her way. She not only overcame racial prejudice, she overcame the untimely death of both her husband and her only child. She didn’t resent, she didn’t hate, she never made excuses and lived life to the full. Her generosity was remarked by the many speakers at her memorial service. She gave generously of herself and the treasure she accumulated in this world and has gone on to her reward. I am proud to have known her and be part of her circle of friends.

I sometimes wonder if she, and people of her generation who found an ethnic community that was much healthier than the one that exists today, may have been fortunate to live in a time when white people were open in their discrimination. Instead, the modern Liberal continues to look down on his Black neighbors, but does so with a debilitating “benevolence” that robs them of the need to succeed.

What caused the change? Why did a black woman born in 1915 succeed despite all the obstacles placed in her way while so many black women (and men) born after the Civil Rights Act blame Whitey for their failure?

It’s interesting isn’t it? There was no federal program aimed specifically at Irish immigrants, or Chinese, or Poles or Italians despite widespread discrimination against them. Could it be that the absence of Benevolent Liberalism, “benign neglect” in Patrick Moynihan’s words, permitted them to succeed using their own efforts? How do you overcome benevolence that always looks down at you as a helpless lesser being who can’t succeed by your own effort but, like a competitor in the Special Olympics, is a racial, cultural or ethnic cripple?

Art, it is with friends like you against which the black American is helpless. So are we all.

Posted by james wilson at December 13, 2012 12:12 PM

I know several black men like this gentleman. They do exist. What we don't know is why. If we could figure that out and replicate it, we might be able to truly end racial problems in the U.S.

Of course, we also might be able to create utopia if we only knew how to get people to live the Golden Rule. Not holding my breath.

Posted by Jimmy J. at December 13, 2012 7:41 PM

Well, moneyrunner, one reason for the difference (at least with regard to Poles and Irish and arguably WRT Italians) is that their ethnicity is not obvious at a glance. Prejudice is a lot easier if you can instantly tell the people you're prejudiced against from those you're not.

Even given that someone from African or East Asian stock completely takes on the attitudes and culture of the host country, there are still plenty of people in the USA (dare I say especially in the southern half of it?) who would be and are still prejudiced against them based on their skin melanin content and/or shape of their eyes.

Fletcher: can I assume that you have been to the U.S., and, if so, for longer than brief visits, and fairly recently?

No? "No" would make more sense, because you have a strange notion of what American whites are like these days, especially in the South.

Posted by Don Rodrigo at December 14, 2012 1:39 PM

Fletcher, are you really this dense or are you playing a part? Trust me, as an immigrant myself, even if your skin isn’t black you can tell an immigrant as soon as he opens his mouth. You really don’t get it do you? To some people the Civil Rights movement never happened and Whitey is always guilty, especially if he lives in the “wrong” part of the country. The skyrocketing births to single black women, the never-formed families, the black-on-black murder rate, the festering pathologies of the ghetto that has followed the enactment of all of the “benevolent” programs of the Left never have anything to do with each other. Read some history.

Thomas Sowell: The poverty rate among blacks was nearly cut in half in the 20 years prior to the 1960s, a record unmatched since then, despite the expansion of welfare state policies in the 1960s.
Unemployment among black 16 and 17-year-old males was 12 percent back in 1950. Yet unemployment rates among black 16 and 17-year-old males has not been less than 30 percent for any year since 1970 -- and has been over 40 percent in some of those years.

Not only was unemployment among blacks in general lower before the liberal welfare state policies expanded in the 1960s, rates of imprisonment of blacks were also lower then, and most black children were raised in two-parent families. At one time, a higher percentage of blacks than whites were married and working.